


Teasing the Edges

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coming In Pants, Dom Sherlock Holmes, Frottage, Jealousy, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mentioned Irene Adler, Psychological Smut, Shame, Sub John Watson, no actual bdsm, sexual negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:04:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: “Tell me what to do,” John hears himself say, feels his cheeks flare red hot, and his eyes bite.  He doesn’t sound like himself.  Or maybe he sounds exactly like himself.  Too like himself.  And that’s the real problem.Vulnerable.“Go into my room, and sit on the bed, and wait for me.”And John goes, sits on the edge of Sherlock’s bed with his hand clasped in his lap, feeling like a boy sent to the headmaster’s office, and Jesus Christ, but that thought should not be getting him this hard.He’s ashamed and thirsty, anxious and relieved all at once, and isn’t this just precisely, exactly why he swore he would never, not in a million years, get involved with Sherlock in any way that came even close to this.  And Christ, God in heaven, WHY?  Why is he doing this to himself?“Because you want it.”  Sherlock is leaning against the door jamb a glass of water in one hand, a blanket from god knows where, folded over one arm.“Want what?”Sherlock grins.  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it…”





	Teasing the Edges

**Author's Note:**

> This is slightly different from the fluff or smut I normally write. It's mostly sexual negotiation and psychological smut. I would definitely consider this adult fic. 
> 
> I really don't feel like it warrants a dubious consent tag, but John is battling with really knowing what he wants and doesn't want, so at times it does sort of mildly skirt the edges. 
> 
> Be safe reading, and do what's best for you. If you have any specific questions about content you'd like answered before reading, feel free to message me on my tumblr (sussexbound).

Sherlock is being careful with him.It irritates ( _enrages?_ ) him to the point of distraction.He looks up at Sherlock’s ocean eyes—fond, concerned, loving, and he wants to punch them.He wants to turn them black & blue, and bloodshot red.He wants to blot them out, so they will just stop SEEING.

_But he doesn’t really._

_He doesn’t want that._

He wants to pluck them out, and lock them up somewhere safe, a treasure that belongs to only him.Jewels tucked away in a box. 

_They’ll only ever look at him._

_They’ll only ever see him._

_His._

That was the best thing about Sherlock being dead.He belonged only to John.No one could take that from him.He could tuck him away and paint him up however he wanted him, whatever suited his taste. 

The real man is an enigma and an arse more times than not.

But he’s looking at John now—unwavering, careful.Those aqua eyes are warm with something John doesn’t understand.They’re not the jewels John had tucked away and cherished for himself—icy, judgemental, punishing.No.The eyes looking at John now make him hate himself, because they speak of something he knows he could never deserve, never accept.They speak of things not made for men like him.

Sherlock’s hands are braced against the hallway wall, either side of John’s head.He’s leaning in and over him, but he’s leaving John space.Consequently, there’s no fight-or-flight.A little disappointing, honestly.John wishes he would pin his wrists, force the issue, take all the decisions out of his hands, make him struggle and fight, but what does that say about him?And does he really want to show his hand that much?

No.

_And yet Sherlock knows.If he knows Sherlock, and he knows he knows him, then he knows that Sherlock knows._

John shakes his head to clear it.

“What are you doing?”He asks as calmly as he can manage.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything.His eyes travel over every inch of John’s face.His lips part slightly.His body sways a little closer.It’s a breath of distance, but John feels it full force. 

He shivers and Sherlock doesn’t back away.

He sniffs in irritation.“Did you hear me?”

“Yeesss…”It’s a long, low drawl that makes John’s body start to respond in very inconvenient ways.

“Well?”

Sherlock’s eyes drop, drag slowly down the length of his body and back up again.“What do you want me to be doing?”

John sucks in a breath and shakes his head.“Nope.Not playing your games.”

To John’s surprise, large, warm hands lock over his wrists, raise them over his head, and pin them to the wall.It’s not rough, but it’s forceful enough to hold him in place.Sherlock leans in closer, and John feels his body explode with pleasure.

His eyes slide shut.His head knocks against the wall behind him.His mouth goes dry.

“You like this game.”Sherlock observes, as though it requires stating, as though John isn’t suddenly half hard, completely pliant, and willing to do anything Sherlock asks. 

Anything.

He goes light-headed at the realisation.The epiphany lights up inside him, and ignites every cell.

Anything.Anything at all.

Everything.

“Tell me what to do,” John hears himself say, feels his cheeks flare red hot, and his eyes bite.He doesn’t sound like himself.Or maybe he sounds exactly like himself.Too like himself.And that’s the real problem. 

Vulnerable.

“Go into my room, and sit on the bed, and wait for me.”

And John goes, sits on the edge of Sherlock’s bed with his hand clasped in his lap, feeling like a boy sent to the headmaster’s office, and Jesus Christ, but that thought should not be getting him this hard.

He’s ashamed and thirsty, anxious and relieved all at once, and isn’t this just precisely, exactly why he swore he would never, not in a million years, get involved with Sherlock in any way that came even close to this.And Christ, God in heaven, WHY?Why is he doing this to himself?

“Because you want it.”Sherlock is leaning against the door jamb a glass of water in one hand, a blanket from god knows where, folded over one arm.

“Want what?”

Sherlock grins.“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it…”

“Is it?”

“Mmm.”He looks around the room a moment, before returning his eyes to John.“I won’t punish you.”

“Excuse me?”John feels a rush of adrenaline and wonders why.

“It’s ineffective.”

“Why would you think you…?I’m not a child.”

“I know.”

“Then what…?”

“I’m just letting you know, that I won’t do punishment.And in any case, it would be counterproductive with you.”

“What the fuck are you on about.”

Sherlock smiles and pushes away from the door, comes into the room.John wants to lie back on the bed, lay himself out like a willing sacrifice and wait.He doesn’t.

Sherlock drapes the blanket carefully at the end of the bed, sets the glass of water on the night stand beside John, and gets to his knees in front of him.

It’s totally unexpected.

John frowns.

“You miss it, don’t you—still?”

And John knows, without knowing how, exactly what Sherlock means—the army, the order, the orders.The safety of it.The fucking comfort of knowing what was expected of you, of knowing you could do it, of knowing the consequences if you did or you didn’t.Fucking orderly.Fucking proper.

He just nods.

“I had a text today.”

John is thrown by the sudden change of topic, but Sherlock is sitting back on his heels and starting to unbutton his shirt, and he can’t seem to look away.“Oh yeah?”He sounds a horny little devil and hates himself a bit. 

Sherlock must hear it too, because he cocks a brow, the corner of his mouth twitches, as he continues to loose his buttons, painfully slow.“Mmm, The Woman.”

John’s eyes snap up to his.Jaw tight.The old familiar jealousy racing through his veins.

Sherlock grins like the utter bastard he is.“I didn’t text back.I only bring it up because it got me thinking—about you.”

“What about me?”John grinds out as Sherlock shrugs out of his shirt, and runs his hands up the tops of John’s thighs, which makes John’s breath catch in spite of himself.

“About how you want her.”

John blinks.

“Or rather you want a her that’s me, or a me that’s her…I’m not quite clear on that point.But one thing is very, very clear, and that is that what she is intrigues you.”

John huffs.“Think you’re confusing yourself with me.Transference maybe.”

“On your part, yes.You know my only interest in her is intellectual, companionable at the very most.But you—you’re aroused by what she does, or is, hence the jealousy, hence you trying to foist her on me, or me on her.”He shrugs.“You want her to give me the things you wish I would give you.But that’s not really what you want, either—is it?Maybe the real fantasy is that you want to see us together.Mirrors.Me commander and submissive all at once.”

“You’re mad.”

“Most probably.But then so are you.”Sherlock strokes the top of John’s thighs again.“Lie back.We’ll start slow.”

John frowns.“Start what?”

“The thing you’ve always wanted.”

John bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, and curses his cock for its twitch of eager interest.“Damn it!”He lies back and throws an arm over his eyes.

Sherlock is stroking his thighs rhythmically.It’s mesmerising, agonising.He’s hard as a rock already, and trapped in his jeans its an uncomfortable business.

“It’s not the roughness, the violence, though that’s there, it sits at the edges I think, but that’s something for later—much later.It’s the submission that intrigues you.”

John pops up onto his elbows.“You think I’m going to submit to you, you’ve got another thing com…”

“Shh…”

And John stops talking, and then realises it, and then scowls.

Sherlock just grins again.“Lie down.And stop being ridiculous.”

John does.He is.He is being ridiculous.Something lets go inside of him.

“Mmm…Better.”Sherlock hums.

John’s cock throbs inside his pants, inside his trousers.He winces at the constriction.

“Let’s take care of that, shall we.”Sherlock’s hands are at his zip.He wants to protest (no he doesn’t.does he?).Sherlock senses it.He must, because he pauses.

“Christ, please.”John says without thought.Pure, base instinct.

And Sherlock gives him the relief he had been craving, and the change in pressure and temperature almost makes him come.He makes the most embarrassing sound, hears Sherlock exhale at it, like he’s just had the wind knocked out of him, and then Sherlock surges forward, climbs on top of him, and pins his wrists to the bed.

John struggles a little, because he wants to, because that’s half the fun, because it’s making him harder than he’s ever been in his life, and if anyone would understand that he figures it would be Sherlock, and he does, he must, because he grins down at him, and just keeps him pinned with his weight alone, just with the fucking weight of his own body.

John thinks of a cold night in the desert, the way James had ordered him sharp and clear, how he’d moved to disobey, the first and only time.He remembers how James had physically restrained him when he tried to go out and clear a path for them.He remembers the weight of his body atop his, the warmth, the way he’d slept like a baby, and had no business doing so with insurgents in the hills, and them right in the line of fire.Nothing happened, but it had changed him.He’d never been the same after that.They’d never been the same.

He stops struggling.

Sherlock sits.The whole weight of his arse on John’s throbbing, aching cock.He can feel how he fits neatly in Sherlock’s cleft even though there is the thin cotton of his pants, and the thin cotton of Sherlock’s pyjamas between them.

“Move.”Sherlock orders, deep and slightly breathless.

“I’m going to co…”

“Move,” Sherlock rumbles, and John complies with his hands pinned either side of his head, and the weight of Sherlock’s body grinding down against his desperate cock, he rocks, arches, thrusts upward a mere handful of times, and comes suddenly, powerfully in his pants like a boy, but not like a boy either, because this is something a younger him never could have imagined ( _never knew was allowed_ ). 

He struggles against Sherlock’s grip as it takes him, wanting to hold onto something, wanting to curl up into himself, because it’s too much, it’s embarrassing, but he wants it, and it’s terrifying really, being held down while his whole body protests.His veins sing with adrenaline, and he feels fucking high.

It takes him awhile to realise that it’s over, that Sherlock’s thumbs are rubbing small circles on the insides of his wrists, that he’s easing back against John’s thighs.John lowers them.Sherlock sits back, peels back John’s pants and looks at him spent, and vulnerable, at the mess he’s made.

John feels untethered.He’s floating.

Sherlock’s weight shifts back against his thighs even more, as his hands loose John’s wrists, slide down his arms, and come to rest on his waist.Sherlock’s thumbs trail through pools of come, leave slick, cool trails in their wake over his abdomen and hips.

“Stay here,” Sherlock murmurs.“I’ll be right back.”

John must drift.He wakes to a warm flannel on his belly.He looks down at Sherlock cleaning him.“You don’t have to…”His voice is slurred, like he’s drunk.He feels it.

“Shh…”Sherlock admonishes gently.

He quiets.It’s easier.

The blanket Sherlock had brought in earlier is being lifted up and over him.There’s no need.He’s fully clothed except for his bare, flagging cock hanging sadly out the flies of his trousers.He opens his mouth to say so.

“You’re shivering.Now, shh.”

“Didn’t say anything.”He manages.

“But you were going to.”

Sherlock tucks him away, and the blanket is nice.Nicer still is Sherlock climbing back on top of him, lying down, the full weight of him pushing John into the mattress, lying there, breathing in tandem until he feels himself come back into his body again.

He knows Sherlock is looking at him.He can feel it behind screwed lids. 

“Stop looking at me,” he finally says.

“You want me to look at you.You like it when I look at you.”

“Don’t tell me what I like.”

“Alright.”

His eyes do open at that.He blinks up at Sherlock staring down at him like some wrecked angel, curls limp and damp with sweat, bare chest flushed pink, nipples peaked and…John licks his lips and swallows dryly.“What was that?”

“I thought I wasn’t to be telling you things.”

John gives him the look and sees Sherlock cow a little.“It was what you wanted. _Wasn’t it?_ ”And now all the confidence, the commanding presence of before is flagging, and he sees the Sherlock he only very rarely gets to see, the one he likes to pretend doesn’t exist—unsure, afraid.

“I don’t know.”Honesty seems best.

Sherlock raises himself onto his elbows his weight baring down on John’s over-sensitised flesh.He shifts a little and Sherlock rolls off of him.“We should have had a safe word.”

John huffs.“Is that the sort of thing we’re up to now?”

“Is it?”

John shakes his head.“I don’t know.”

“But I was right?It does intrigue you?”

“What does?”

“The surrender.”

“It fucking terrifies me.”John is surprised.It’s the most honest thing he’s ever said to anyone in his life.And why Sherlock?Why now?He has no idea.

“But you want it.”

John wonders at the burning in his eyes.“Maybe.Yeah.Maybe.”

“Do you trust me?”

John shakes his head.“No.”

Sherlock looks like he’s just been punched.“Then we shouldn’t have done this.I’m sorry.”

John’s hand shoots out, presses against the centre of Sherlock’s chest, over the scar left there by the woman he’d married as punishment.“I want to learn.”

The look Sherlock turns on him is disbelieving and hopeful all at once.

“I want to learn to trust you again.Or maybe—for the first time.I don’t know.I don’t know much of anything, as you’re always observing.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches, and John sees a little of his confidence come back at that, this olive branch John is extending, the unspoken roles they’ve always played.John is smarter than he looks, and he is fairly sure Sherlock knows that, but he’s always been willing to play the fool if it means Sherlock stands a little taller.

A kind of willing submission, born of affection, he suddenly realises.That thing that’s been there between them since the beginning.He would die, or kill, or sacrifice everything for Sherlock.He has.

“You know more than you let on, I think.”Sherlock’s tone is fond.

John graces him with a sly, suggestive grin, and enjoys the colour it brings to Sherlock’s cheeks.

Sherlock sobers.“We should have precautions in place, though.”

“Yeah.”

Sherlock hesitates, thinking.When his eyes lift to John’s again, it’s the same look he’d had in the hall earlier, but this time John doesn’t want to punch it away.“Are you sure?”

John sniffs, swallows, nods.“Yeah.I’m sure.”


End file.
